CONN 382 | African Women Writers: Gender, Power, and Identity

This course explores African women writers and critics, focusing on their cultural positions, theoretical priorities, and representations of women¿s experiences. It provides students with both a broad and specific understanding of African women¿s achievements, identities, and cultural contributions. The class approaches the material through an interdisciplinary framework that draws on literary studies, history, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, and postcolonial theory. Students engage with texts by authors such as Mariama Bâ, Assia Djebar, Buchi Emecheta, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, analyzing how race, gender, class, and colonialism shape African women¿s lives as well as the production of knowledge about them. Weekly assignments combine at least two disciplinary perspectives, encouraging students to compare, reflect, and synthesize across methods. Through essays, projects, and reflective writing, students practice integrative learning and cross-disciplinary dialogue. The course fulfills the KNOW requirement and emphasizes how African women writers challenge inequality and colonial legacies while asserting their intellectual and creative presence.